STV Main Thread:

STV appeal, and Autumn pres is now in use

STV have begun a new five year partnership deal with Sky. This deal will launch all 4 regional variants of STV in HD in the first half of 2019. It will allow all Sky customers in Scotland access on demand programmes from STV Player on their Sky boxes for the first time.

Very interesting. I wonder if the delivery of the three extra STV regions will be via satellite, or via the internet ?
If the former I suspect they will be FTV status, and therefore not available on Freesat or non Sky receivers ?

STV Productions and Primal Media have announced a two-year strategic co-production deal, which will see the two companies working together to pitch large-scale entertainment formats as production partners.

The partners will develop formats to target UK and international networks, with the aim that production of the shows is based in Scotland.

The creative production partnership forms part of STV’s ambitious plans to grow STV Productions into a world-class production company, focusing on developing returning series for terrestrial and digital players and serving the growing demand for quality programming from the nations and regions.

Innovative content producer, Primal Media, which is majority owned by Lionsgate, was founded in 2016 by Mat Steiner and Adam Wood, and is behind a range of big entertainment shows including Carnage, for Sky One, Rose D’Or winning Bigheads, for ITV, and RTS Award-winning Release The Hounds, for ITV2.

Primal Media is a joint venture with Lionsgate, who will be first in line to distribute any new formats that emerge from the partnership.

David Mortimer, managing director of STV Productions, said: “I’m so excited that we are teaming up with Primal Media. Adam and Mat are two of the most talented entertainment producers in the business, so I know we will do great things together.”

Gary Chippington, head of Entertainment at STV Productions, said: “We’re delighted to be partnering with one of the most creative companies in the business.”

Adam Wood, managing director of Primal Media, said: “Every ambitious indie these days must have the option to produce in Scotland – if not, too many precious format slots will be out of reach. STV, with their scale, entrepreneurial leadership and deep-rooted Scottish production expertise, feel like the perfect partners, and we look forward to sharing ideas with David, Gary and their team.”

Last week, STV Productions announced that its drama team has secured television rights to two debut novels by Scottish authors. Best-seller Maggie & Me, by writer and columnist Damian Barr, and Fishnet, by award-winning journalist Kirsten Innes, have both been optioned and will be developed by head of Drama Development, Claire Armspach and head of Drama, Sarah Brown.

I've added some coverage of the mini-refresh with mostly repurposed STV2 idents to the website now, for those outside of Scotland (and too lazy to view satellite/STV player). I suppose at least it means they'll get more viewers than they did when aired on STV2 now!

Also it's only just registered with me that they've *finally* dropped the HD part off the channel DOG at some point in the last month too, only a mere 6 years after ITV. Got a bit of a gap in the recordings for STV so couldn't give an exact date, but it was certainly still there at the New Year, and gone by February 11th so ahead of this mini-refresh. I'm surprised it still lasted this long really after they'd already dropped it from the idents last year.